


Resurrection in the Existential

by Self_san



Series: When the Earth Kissed the Sky [1]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Always-a-girl!Q, Gen, Gender Related, Imagined Backstory, Mention of Debilitating Injury, Q will always be a badass, Strong Female Characters, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-15
Updated: 2012-11-15
Packaged: 2017-11-18 17:01:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/563340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Self_san/pseuds/Self_san
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bond is not the only one to be reborn. Or remade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Resurrection in the Existential

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even KNOW. This has just...eaten my life. Completely.

The thing most people at MI6 don’t know about Q is that, once, she was a field agent.

…she just wasn’t a field agent for MI6.

*

Q picks out the clothes she wears for a few very specific reasons. The first--will this be warm/comfortable enough? The second--will this make me look like a complete ponce? And third--will this _cover_ everything?

The first is a matter of course. By most counts, Q will likely be wearing whatever it is she’s wearing for hours upon hours upon _days_ , depending on what she’s working on. (Clocks are things to be _disrespected_ , in Q’s book. Not _abided_ _by_ like the everyday mice of the world.) Also, MI6 is _underground_. It is _always_ cold. Always. And Q-Branch is on the bottom most level of it all. (It doesn’t help that, after so many years, Q finds herself acutely bothered by lower temperatures. There is a conveniently hid pair of fingerless gloves in her desk, just waiting to be used, and she _always_ has an extra jumper on hand.) Q has learned the art to layering. She layers everything.

Everything.

The second is a something that stubbornly remains with her since…well, since before she was _Q_ , really. Back then, clothing had been something to intimidate or to soften, to allure or seduce, to draw eyes to her or turn them away. Since then, Q has gladly retired all form of heeled foot wear, all uncomfortably slick and/or scratchy unmentionables, and all dresses to the back of her closet, behind the black bag that contains the dress she wore to her mother’s funeral. Hidden. Out of mind.

Nowadays, Q can be commonly found in a pair of fitted men’s trousers (thank God for boy-hips), a pair of loafers, and a jumper layered over a dress shirt and tie combo. All colors are muted and dark. All underthings are Spartan and comfortable (not that anyone at MI6 has seen them, but, well), things worn soft with age, cotton boy-shorts and vest, sports-bras and tube-socks.

Q is, now, unassuming at best. All of her calluses have worn away from her long, pale hands; traveled and moved to new spaces where her fingers fit her keyboard. Her nails are bare. She wears no jewelry, and most days not even makeup. She has short, messy hair and thick-rimmed glasses that she still isn’t quite used to, a job that she is the best at, and a life that revolves around wars fought in the shadows of the civilized world.

And the third? Well, that’s something that she’s found she _has_ to think about, not something that comes automatically.

*

The thing is, Q was a field agent.

And field agents get hurt.

Q

got hurt.

She tries not to think about it much.

(Fails, really.)

*

Q joined MI6 because she could do nothing else. She had always been a instrument of death, of _justice_ , if she really wanted to get noble about it. About security and patriotism and all things--

But that didn’t matter. She got hurt. She couldn’t do her job. She was, for a time… _useless_.

And that had _burned_.

That had burned so fiercely, so painfully in Q’s chest, past the bruised ribs and the layer of skinmuscleflesh that Q had felt she could just _die_.

Dramatic, yes, but with three more surgeries left to go, held immobile in the hospital bed, her eyes unable to focus, unable to _see_ , God, she _couldn’t_ _see_ \--she had felt that helpless, creeping feeling.

For a time, it had ruled her. Had _been_ her.

But Q had never been useless. Not. Ever.

And now, she never will be again.

*

Remaking is both death and rebirth.

Q is very good at both.

*

M had been both a kick in the arse and a saving grace. An absentee-landlord in Q’s new world.

Q goes to her funeral.

Because it is respectful. Because Q owed M…a lot.

Because Bond _didn’t_ / _couldn’t_ / _wouldn’t_.

*

Q meets Bond in an Museum. Surrounded by the relics of the past (not just Bond, not just Q) she sits beside him and has an argument about, well, herself, really.

Q never could take a beating sitting down. She rose to the occasion, and was given a twist of the lips from Bond. A firm handshake. Some slight measure of respect.

It isn’t until the next time, when the old-parka is gone and she’s left in a rumpled shirt and a warm, thin jumper and Bond’s eyes widen at the sight of the swell her breasts make, that Q realizes…

Bond hadn’t known she was a woman.

Well.

*

Q doesn’t like to think about the absolute bloody _clusterfuck_ that happens next.

Doesn’t. Has to anyway.

The joys of her life, really.

*

Laying in her bed the night of M’s funeral, Q’s head buzzes with thoughts and code and everything that went wrong but could have gone worse. About her sister and MI6 and the Agency…

She gets up, pushing off thick blankets, and walks to the privy. Strips. Turns on the lights.

Standing there under the harsh fluorescents, her glasses low on her nose, her hair a curly halo around her pale face, Q swallows and makes herself look. Really _look_.

And makes herself remember what it had felt like, to be remade.

　


End file.
